Susan Rice's Bad Benghazi Rerun

Parallels: A mission was attacked after warnings, Americans were killed after security requests were denied, and a diplomat went on TV to explain it all — our current U.N. ambassador, after embassy bombings in 1998.

'What troubles me so much is the Benghazi attack in many ways echoes the attacks on both embassies in 1998, when Susan Rice was head of the African region for our State Department," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Wednesday after two hours with our U.N. ambassador. "In both cases, the ambassador begged for additional security."

In both cases, Susan Rice was involved more than she would like to admit.

In the spring of 1998, Prudence Bushnell, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, sent an emotional letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright begging for a more secure embassy in the face of mounting terrorist threats and a warning that she was the target of an assassination plot.

The State Department had repeatedly denied her request, citing a lack of money. But that kind of response, she wrote Albright, was "endangering the lives of embassy personnel."

A matter of months later, on Aug. 7, 1998, the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were simultaneously attacked with car bombs. In Kenya, 12 American diplomats and more than 200 Africans were killed.

As in Benghazi, requests for more security were denied, warnings were issued, prior incidents were ignored and Susan Rice went on TV to explain it all.

And we've truly reached the end times when John farging Kerry starts to look like a better option than well, anyone.

Speaking of Rice, competence, and the lack thereof, don't miss Peter Wehner's post on "Liberals and the Race Card" at Commentary, along with Seth Mandel's follow up, in which he writes, "That’s the trouble with the left’s 'dog whistles'–when universally applied, they make everyone racist."

But then the nation -- or at least its "liberal" overculture -- has become, as James Taranto has recently taken to saying, "Most Racial America."

Rice has the highest net worth of executive branch members, with a fortune estimated between $24 to $44 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. A Free Beacon analysis of Rice’s portfolio shows thousands of dollars invested in at least three separate companies cited by lawmakers on Capitol Hill for doing business in Iran’s oil and gas sector.

The revelation of these investments could pose a problem for Rice if she is tapped by President Barack Obama to replace Clinton. Among the responsibilities of the next secretary of state will be a showdown with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program.